Rail booking...still in the stone-age

Heycock

You'd think in this day and age, with all the computerised booking services available, that you could work out an itinerary, cost and book a through trip from Lime St, Liverpool down to Euston, xfer to St Pancras, Eurostar to Paris, xfer to Gare du Sud and TGV to Nice. But no. Every stage has to be a separate enquiry and booking process. On the other hand there is the convenience and cheapness of easyjet.

So much for getting people onto rail as an alternative to flying.

Actually I'm planning to do it the other way round. Flying down to Nice anyway, because of the time factor, but taking a slow way back just for the sheer novelty pleasure of the rail journey

redux

British sites don't search abroad, and foreign ones might not link to actually buy the tickets, but you can use bahn.com to get the times

Gare de Lyon in Paris, not Gare du Sud.

JulieM

Try the Eurostar website, it looks like you can book the whole journey through them, starting from Liverpool Lime St.

Voyager2002

You can certainly book a journey between Nice and London in one go: check out voyages-sncf or the Eurostar website. That booking entitles you to buy a ticket between Liverpool and London International: a flexible ticket that is cheaper than any flexible ticket offered for domestic travel.

pablakeman

Try http://www.raileurope.com

EDIT - Don't try this! I used to use this a lot and did Swansea (South Wales) to Troyes (just east of Paris) no problem and this involved me going through Paris (gare de l'est). However, it now seems to have been taken over by SNCF and isn't as useful.

Quick tip - Remember in France to 'composter' (punch) your ticket in the machines or you face a heavy fine! Do it at Nice station.

spiro

To get advice on the best and cheapest way to book European train journeys go to https://www.seat61.com

Heycock

Thanks for the advice peeps. I've travelled by train quite alot in France but never long distance nor on TGV and never tried to connect from the UK. Big ooops on Gare du Lyon! Thanks for that!